It’s been a wonderful Fall 2023 semester at Toronto Metropolitan University so far, filled with fantastic opportunities to speak to some of the best students I’ve yet to encounter! Big thanks to Dr. Blake Fitzpatrick and Eliot Wright for the opportunity to speak about my ongoing Twenty-Three Kilometre project to both sections of MPS506 Photography and Production in September, and for the profound and challenging questions your students brought. Immense gratitude to Dr. Heather Diack for inviting me to lead what can only be described as a “wonderful” class discussion as part of my talk – “Can A Street Be A Monument” in MPC 103 Reframing Art History. Much appreciation and thanks to Dr. John Shiga for letting me lead your CMN210 Image, Sound and Text course on a walk of downtown Toronto, and for the chance to introduce students to one of my favourite walking tour’s of all time: Camille Turner’s Hush Harbour.
Away from my home University it’s also been very rewarding to meet and speak once again with students, faculty and fellow panelists at University College Dublin School of History. Thank You Dr. Jeremiah Garsha for inviting me to your seminar GBST 10020 Global Studies: From the Micro to Global to speak about how the renaming of Dundas Street in Toronto both exposes transnational connections the history of the British Empire and slavery and animates contemporary solidarities.
Finally a very warm thank-you to former colleague and neighbour Lisa Ditschun for getting me out of my comfort zone and inviting me to your SCTM 2013 What is Time? course at OCADU to speak on a panel about “time” and to offer my thoughts on the temporal philosophy of Henri Bergson, and its impacts on theories of identity, space, and contemporary discussions of anti-colonialism and decolonization.
I’m very much looking forward to my next invitation to return to York University to speak to students in Dr. Celia Popovic’s course on Place and Learning in January!